Cocktail Chronicles
An excellent blog by a man who has more cocktail books than I thought were published.

cocktailnerd
Gabriel has crafted a fine site and shares some of my pain with a state-run liquor system. He also manages to post about 4000 times more than me, and it’s always interesting!

Dave’s Drinks
Anyone who posts about exotic cocktails makes it on this blogroll!

Days That End In “Y”
An all-around drinking blog that posts quality news on the world of spirits, beer, wine, gadgets… the list goes on, as do the posts, which are too numerous to count. “Updated frequently” would be an understatement.

Dr. Bamboo
A fellow Pennsylvanian with a penchant for art and fine cocktails.

Favorite Posts

After recoiling in horror at my first taste of Wray and Nephew overproof rum, I immediately assumed something had gone very wrong. Had someone dumped out the rum and poured in gasoline? And why did they add vanilla extract to it? Needless to say, that first taste was so repulsive, I avoided the stuff for some time until finally being ridiculed so extensively for my poor taste by my close cocktail associates that I gave it another try.

My second attempt was more than a year later. I’m not sure if it was the peer-pressure, the fact that I now enjoy sipping Fernet Branca from nearly any vessel, or some other mash of circumstances, but what once tasted like the remains of a thousand penguin corpses steeped in vanilla extract was now transformed into a funky, miracle rum.

True it is not nasty at all, but actually quite wonderful. Dilute it a bit and really taste it.

BTW, there are many products not produced on the estate- they make several other spirits (and Myers’s) which are made in Kingston where they have several column stills. If I remember right from my visit, there are only pot stills at the estate.

my kitchen isn’t complete without a bottle of Wray & Nephew…it reminds me of the Jamaican treats my mom made growing up. that flavor showed up in drinks & desserts and we were never too young for the taste. now, i’m a fan of the Wray & Nephew gimlet, but love it with Ting as well.

[…] Rick from Kaiserpenguin.com made 2 glorious Cheater`s and Applejack swizzles, both very flavourful which i`m sure will be featured over at Kaiserpenguin with some amazing photos and breathtaking garnishes: […]

I couldn’t find Ting, but I mixed Wray & Nephew with Limonata and it was brilliant… the perfect summer drink, so long as you consider getting completely hammered by the second one to be “perfect”. I imagine Fresca would work, too… any citrus soda with a lot of strong, bitter rind overtones would work. The rum tends to overpower wimpy sodas like Coke or even ginger beer. I like floating a little bit into just about any rum cocktail for complexity, but it’s very easy to go overboard and ruin a drink with it.

Ahh what I would have given to be in the old Shakespeare Tavern with John Wray in the late 1800s! The stories, the interesting clientele…
I for one actually like my JWray in hot tea when it’s really cold in winter, preferably after skiing. Nothing like it.

Many years ago my father had a 55 gallon steel tqnk stqinless expressly built for his collection to bring back a lot of tequila. Never had gas at or close to it. He bought his tequila in the original tequila distillery in Mexico tequila. when I came back here and proved that I could have sworn that hit the gas tank. The material was bloody awful. I was never a fan of tequila, but these things cured me forever. Why taste that way? Could it be the way it did. From the photos taken by my father when the distillery was a marvel without sanitation, the agave was crushed by bulldozers, with all the fat loss and exposed. and things airy outdoor sources that anyone can pee on. Or dip into a paper cup. Treatment in manufacturing. I stay with whiskey.